With $42.2 million, the biggest opening gross thus far in 2009, Friday the 13th easily won the record-breaking Presidents Day weekend box office race, beating out Valentine’s Day favorites Confessions of a Shopaholic and He’s Just Not That Into You, as well as solid holdovers Taken and Coraline. (All totals listed here are according to early three-day estimates from Media by Numbers; rough figures for the four-day holiday weekend will be out tomorrow.)
That $42.2 mil sum is the top first-weekend figure for any movie in the nearly 30-year-old Friday the 13th series — including the 2003 mashup Freddy vs. Jason, which premiered with $36.4 mil. (In fact, the original Friday the 13th movie, from 1980, grossed just $39.7 mil during its entire run, not adjusted for inflation.) In addition, this marks the best bow ever for a horror remake, besting The Grudge‘s $39.1 mil debut gross. And it arrives despite a weak B- CinemaScore review from an audience that skewed male. In other words, great as this first frame was for Friday the 13th, expect a big drop next weekend.
Second place went to hearty holdover He’s Just Not That Into You, which banked an expected $19.6 mil on a slight 29 percent drop. Taken came next at No. 3, with $19.3 mil in its third frame, a mere 6 percent decline from its previous outing. In three weeks, the out-of-nowhere Liam Neeson juggernaut thriller has grossed nearly $78 mil.
Audiences were just not that into freshman flick Confessions of a Shopaholic (No. 4), however. The Jerry Bruckheimer-produced farce opened with an okay $15.4 mil and drew a similarly okay CinemaScore grade of B from a crowd that was 75 percent female.
Coraline rounded out the top five with $15.3 mil, another teensy decline of just 9 percent from last weekend. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (No. 6) brought its five-week sum to $110.5 mil, making it the first-ever non-sequel January release to hit the century mark. And new movie The International (No. 7) stumbled with just $10 mil — and a poor CinemaScore grade of C+ from mostly older men.
Overall, it was the best Presidents Day weekend ever: The total gross of all movies playing during this frame was about $190 mil, which trumps the previous benchmark of $157 mil in 2007 (and is up more than 38 percent from last year). No doubt, Washington and Lincoln would be proud.
More Box Office News:
Box Office Preview: Can Friday the 13th win on Friday the 13th?
EW.com’s Box Office Chart
He’s Just Not That Into You gets lots of love
Taken scores a touchdown
Paul Blart edges out Underworld 3 to win the weekend
addCredit(“John P. Johnson”)
As long as people keep seeing these horrible remakes, they will keep making them.
Kind of sad that The International didn’t do that good.
Taken came out in dvd in south america before opening in theaters in the US… does this mean the producers were expecting a failure already? Because the same thing happened to that awful 88 Minutes starring Al Pacino, which I had watched on TV even before the movie opened… and turned out to suck really bad.
Economic recession?? People pay good money to see a remake of a movie from almost 30 years ago that wasn’t that great to begin with. Credit/debt crisis — no wonder…
Glad to see Taken doing so well – it’s a fantastic movie (even if the US version is sanitized of the good violence from the overseas version) and so happy The International is tanking – that was 2 of the most boring hours of my life…just awful. Friday the 13th was good for a slasher flick, with fun gore and nudity. Shopaholic was cute and I think it’ll have good word of mouth but He’s Just Not That Into You appeal more to both demo’s, rather than Shopaholic which most males will hate (I love Isla Fisher, so it was tolerable).
Horror movies are a genre that everybody loves to go see. They scare you without any real fear of anything happening and usually there is a triumph at the end. It really doesn’t matter what cinema score they get. That is the reason this did so well. Plus it is Jason Voorhees, everyone loves him as a horror icon.
“The first-ever non-sequel January release” to make $100 Million? Is anyone else as sick as I am of these ridiculous multi-hyphenate box-office-based pseudo-honorifics? In other words … who cares???
…Shopoholic a Valentine’s Day favorite?! It is a BOMB! EW writers are getting really bad…just like most movies!
Wow people seriously waste their money on such gimmicky rehashes nowadays!! I was virtually dragged into seein this crap expecting the inevitable Michael Bay “SHOW ME THE MONEY” as in all his films,and BOY was I right. Don’t get me wrong, i kinda sorta enjoyed the Texas Chainsaw remake for what it was, but this?!? Such rubbish! The last horror movie I actually enjoyed was The Ring(not part 2 though!) and IM SOOO tired of remakes!! I know Nightmare on Elm Street is coming and I fear the worst is FAR from over!! Lets get original on horror films already!!
I agree with pretty much everything captianOBVIOUS just said.
Wow!!! i must say i am really susprised by how much this movie made i mean the economy is real bad and yet this movie made up to 40 million what? how? i find it unbelieveable ok i did think it was going to be 1# with 25-30 million but 40 million and it will probably make more because of president’s day i must say i am susprised wow.
First off, you do realize “The Ring” was a remake of a Japanese movie right??
Enough remakes already Hollywood is running out of fresh ideas! Who knows maybe the next thing the producers would do is Americanized a Bollywood film. LOL!
Yes, the Hollywood Well is running dry — they have recently announced a remake of the “classic” Rowdy Roddy Piper epic “They Live!”
The ‘Well’ has only run dry because the same old tired suits are calling the shots and people with fresh ideas and talent (like myself
) often can’t find an ‘IN’ or are easily dismissed as being ‘nobody’ and a lot of good films aren’t getting made.